CHAPTER XXIX
THE REWARD
Cunningham and the fragrance of Rose Jacqueminot! Cunningham and ayellow satin sachet embroidered in blue!
These words kept pounding in my brain and though I went over them in thelight of the facts which we had gleaned, I could see no plausible reasonfor Cunningham's having committed that murder. He could have no possiblemotive for wanting to harm Ruth since he did not know her, nor could Ibelieve, despite the gold and blue room, that he was in love with CoraManning. He had evidently never called on her at Gramercy Park or herlandlady would have described him to us, and it was not likely thatbeing engaged to Lee, Cora Manning would have received the advances ofother men, at least so I judged from the manner in which Ruth had spokenof her.
Cunningham's explanations, too, had been eminently satisfactory, and hadcleared him even in McKelvie's eyes, as far as I could judge last night.Besides, it wasn't as though Cunningham were the sole possessor of oneof those sachets.
McKelvie was in much the same position as that robber in "Ali Baba andthe Forty Thieves," of which I used to be fond in my childhood days,that robber who led his chief to the cross-marked house only to discoverthat all the neighboring houses were also cross-marked. As a clue, then,the fragrance of Rose Jacqueminot and the yellow satin sachet were asuseless as the robber's chalk-mark.
It might also be that Cunningham's use of that particular fragrance, andhis acquaintance with a woman who also affected yellow satin sachetsembroidered in blue, was one of those coincidences that often occur inlife, where truth is in many cases stranger than fiction.
As McKelvie had truly remarked, the trails crossed and recrossed untilthe right one was lost to view in the labyrinth of paths. As I lookedback over the facts we had learned I was amazed to find how little realprogress we had made toward the solution. It was all conjecture andexcept for Dick's ring, we had no clues which could rightly be termedsuch. And when it came to suspects, Lee and Dick and Cunningham ran aclose race, though the greatest amount of evidence pointed toward Dick,since McKelvie was inclined to hold Lee guiltless, and Cunningham had noadequate motive.
About two o'clock McKelvie called at the office and found me alone.
"Can you spare me a few minutes?" he inquired, as he glanced at the workon my desk.
"I should say so," I returned quickly, pushing aside my papers."Anything new?"
"No, I've come to the end of my tether--"
"You don't mean that you're giving up the case?" I interrupted,dismayed.
He laughed. "Giving up the case when it's just becoming exciting? Youdon't know me, Mr. Davies," he cried, and his voice was exultant, hiseyes fairly dancing. "I was going to say that I have reached the pointwhere skirmishing in the dark is no longer satisfactory. I'm coming outin the open and I'm going to fight him with the plan of campaign spreadout for him to read."
"You think that is wise?"
"Yes, decidedly so. I'm going to let him know I'm after him, and thenwe'll watch him struggle to escape my net," he declared.
"Then you know who the criminal is?" I asked.
"No. I suspect, but I have no proof," he replied. "Ah, he's a cleverdevil, that fellow, and we're just beginning to break below the surfacein this affair. Here's my scheme."
He drew from his pocket a folded sheet, opened it, and handed it to mewith the remark, "I've distributed copies of that around the city."
I looked at the sheet, which still smelled strongly of the printer'sink, and saw that it was a hand-bill offering a reward of one thousanddollars for any authentic information which might lead to the discoveryof the present whereabouts of Lee Darwin, last seen about four o'clockat the corner of Twenty-fifth Street and Third Avenue, on the afternoonof October the eighth. There followed a description of the young man,accompanied by his photograph and the added announcement that the rewardwould be paid by Graydon McKelvie, at No. -- Stuyvesant Square.
"Ought to bring results, eh? When some six million people becomeinterested in finding him we ought to locate him in short order."
"What makes you think he is in New York?" I inquired.
"Wilkins returned yesterday morning and reported that Lee never wentSouth at all. There is no trace of his having gone there. So I startedWilkins at this end again. Last night when I got back from Cunningham's,Wilkins was waiting for me. He had discovered that Lee had taken a taxias far as Third Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street. After that he vanishedcompletely. So the presumption is that he is still in the city."
"In the city and in hiding," I mused. "Yet you said the night we chasedthe criminal, that in accusing Lee you were putting the true culprit offhis guard by making him think you had no interest in him. That wouldimply Lee's innocence, yet what other possible motive could he have fordisappearing?"
"There are two reasons for his disappearance, as far as I can see. Oneis the assumption that he is the criminal. This reason, as you remarked,I have discarded. Lee did not kill his uncle. I'll tell you why I makethis assertion." He rose abruptly and took a turn around the room, thenhalted in front of me again. "You saw and heard him at the inquest? Howdid he impress you, as regards his character, I mean?"
"He struck me as being a rather passionate, quick-tempered chap, one whoalso possessed the power of self-control. He has a frank face and cleareyes. Also I've heard Mr. Trenton say in discussing him that he is afine, upright boy, and that he liked him very much indeed," I replied.
"Passionate and quick-tempered," repeated McKelvie. "Is he the type tocommit murder in cold-blood?"
"No. In a moment of passionate anger, yes, but not in cold-blood," Ireturned with conviction.
"Just what I decided from the first, and as this murder waspremeditated, that let's him out. Now for the second reason for hisdisappearance. He was engaged to Cora Manning, yet he denied knowingher. When the coroner showed him the handkerchief he was in mortal dreadthat he would recognize it as hers. Therefore he knew something of whattook place in the study, in which Miss Manning was involved. Or,perhaps, he knew of her intended visit to the Darwin home. However thatmay be, he knew something of importance. He left the inquest before allthe evidence was brought in, therefore he was in ignorance of theverdict when he returned to the Club. Nevertheless he was a menace tothe criminal's plan to implicate Mrs. Darwin, for Lee would come forwardand tell what he knew the moment he learned of Mrs. Darwin'spredicament. What does the criminal do then? He decoys Lee from the Clubwith a telegram, and keeps him a prisoner somewhere in the city, toprevent him from giving evidence."
"What a fiend the man must be!" I exclaimed. "But how did he know soquickly that Lee was a menace to him. The papers were hardly out by thattime," I added.
"Because he was at the inquest, and he deduced danger to himself fromLee's actions," replied McKelvie. "That is, of course, he must have beenthere to act so promptly since he has no confederate, I am sure. Therewere any number of extra persons in the room. He could easily form oneof the curious, or disguise himself as a reporter, or any othercharacter that happened to occur to him. He is daring enough to haveimpersonated the District Attorney himself."
I agreed. "But, in that event, when the man realizes you are after Leebecause you need his evidence, for of course he will see your reward,won't he murder the boy to get rid of him? He seems to be capable of anyoutrage."
"Unfortunately that is a risk I shall have to run. Now that I ampersuaded that the criminal is holding Lee a prisoner I've got to rescuehim, since the murderer is not likely to hamper himself with the boyoverlong--if he hasn't done away with him already. We have wasted muchvaluable time following a false lead. Well, it can't be helped now, andthere is nothing to be gained by crying over spilt milk. Wilkins iscombing the East Side and I hope to have news in a few hours. From nowon it's a fight to the finish," he ended, exultantly. "I have shown thecriminal my hand. I want Lee, and the man I'm ultimately going to getwill do his best to balk me--if he can."
"Here's to our side," I said, catching his enthusiasm. "And rememberthat
I want to be in on anything that happens."
"Right. I won't forget you."
But he did, for I heard nothing further from him during the remainder ofthe afternoon, which I spent in an endeavor to pin my mind to marketquotations which I considered merely trivial beside the problem that wasworrying me, and when I called his house that evening Dinah reportedthat he had gone out and she had no idea when he would return.Disappointedly I sought my favorite chair and my pipe, offering Mr.Trenton a cigar, which he declined. He had been to see Ruth thatafternoon and as usual after such a visit he was very disheartened. Itried to cheer him, but with little success, since my feelings coincidedso accurately with his own and I could ill bear the thought of Ruth inthat dreadful place day after day, with no hope of release. I finallyturned in, determined to forget my troubles in oblivion. But I could notsleep. Over and over I reviewed the case, particularly the latest phasesof it, and wondered if Dick's ring in the secret room, where itcertainly had no business to be, might not serve as a clue upon which tosecure Ruth's release. Then my mind wandered to Lee and the girl of theperfume, to Cunningham and the gold-and-blue room, until gradually itseemed to me that a delicious fragrance pervaded the room, and I driftedinto the land of dreams.
And in that sleep I dreamed a weird and awful dream. I thought I stoodin the secret room behind the safe, which somehow resembled thegold-and-blue room in Cunningham's apartment, and as I stood therebreathing the fragrance of Rose Jacqueminot a man dashed by me andentered the study. He had a pistol in his hand and as he fired atDarwin, whom I could see dimly in the distance, I heard a woman shriek.Then the man came back, dragging a girl by the arm, and as he went by mehe dropped Dick's ring at my feet, and turned toward me such a face as Ihope never to see even in my dreams again. It was the face of a demondistorted by passion, and it bore no resemblance to anyone I knew, orrather, it was a composite of those concerned in the case, for he hadDick's eyes, Lee's nose and chin, and Cunningham's red hair. A moment Ilooked into his mad eyes and then I saw him raise his arm and fire atthe girl and I realized with horror that she was Ruth. With a cry Iflung myself toward him--and woke with my arms around my pillow.